Services for You

What we can do for you

Zero Waste is our mission and our passion, and we want to help you get your community moving so you can create green jobs, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and build resilient sustainable communities. We work with citizens and organizations, government staff and elected officials, and businesses. We do Zero Waste planning, not solid waste planning, and that one word makes a powerful difference!

Let us be your Zero Waste experts and tap into the amazing work being done, and the lessons learned, by people just like you across the global Zero Waste movement.

Why work with us?

It doesn’t cost a bundle. Traditional consultants are expensive, requiring a big investment that can impede Zero Waste progress. We provide a community roadmap, toolkits and best practices—many of them for free—to help you get moving right away. Our services build off this foundation and come in all sizes to help you navigate the unique challenges in your community and customize the support you need.

It’s about the people. Zero Waste isn’t a technology fix—it’s about community change. That means everyone in the community has a role to play. We can help you find strategic partners to spark action and sustain progress.

We’re grounded in everyday experience. Eco-Cycle is one of the oldest and largest nonprofit recycling and Zero Waste organizations in the U.S. We’re in the trenches every day—running a recycling center, hauling recycling and compost, educating kids and adults, organizing Zero Waste events, negotiating with local governments, writing and supporting Zero Waste initiatives, operating the CHaRM and more. You’re getting 40 years of experience and a mission-driven perspective, and you’re getting staff with quite a few years under their belts too.

Our Services

Here’s what we can offer for your community. Contact us today to learn more and get started!

Coaching Services

Community assessments

Not sure where to start or what to do next? We can provide a community assessment to identify the strengths and opportunities specific to your area. We then help you navigate the results and your priority next steps with a 60-minute phone call.

“On-demand” research

Don’t spend hours on Google looking for models of what other communities have done—we’ve already done that. We have the expertise and resources to choose the strategies that are most relevant for your situation. Let us pull together the best practices and applicable models from other communities like yours.

Coaching services

Zero Waste is a journey. You’re likely to need some help in a few places along the way. Our coaching services can ebb and flow with your needs, without a long-term commitment or a substantial consulting package.

We can help you:

Identify and prioritize opportunities and obstacles in short and long-term planning

Strategize your approach and materials before important meetings with decision-makers and stakeholders

Communicate to decision-makers why Zero Waste is an important goal and action for your community

Cultivate key partnerships to drive long-term Zero Waste success

And much more!

Community Engagement Services

Community dashboard

We often say that a Zero Waste community is not built by government alone. That means citizens and businesses are key players in the process, from start to finish. We can help you educate and engage the public on your plan and process with a community dashboard. With progress updates, informative resources and stories of Zero Waste models and successes, the dashboard keeps the community engaged in the vision of where you’re going, what’s happening and what steps come next.

Presentations and speaking

Through workshops, webinars and speaking engagements, we can help you advance the Zero Waste conversation in your community and integrate it with your sustainability and climate goals.

Community education tools

You need to interact with your community regularly using Zero Waste tips and tools, but we know that writing and designing interesting content can be challenging and time-consuming. Let us deliver engaging content to your inbox that you can brand with your logo and use in newsletters, social media, on the web and more. Ask for a free sample.

What we don’t do

We believe a good relationship starts with realistic expectations, so we want to be upfront about what we can and cannot do.

On the ground implementation

We can be your Zero Waste experts, but we’re not experts on your community–the people, the values, the dynamics, the politics and the players. Understanding these factors is the key to sustaining momentum on the journey to Zero Waste.

This is why we can’t come in and do it for you. You have an important role to play in helping to advance Zero Waste–as a citizen, elected official, government staff, organization or business. But we don’t expect you to do it alone either! We can help you build the resources and support in your local government and in your community to carry the Zero Waste message.

Major consulting engagements

Think of us as an extended member of your team you can call in when you need an expert pair of eyes and ears on a problem or opportunity. Our job is to guide you to the best options, not to write a 100-page report on all your potential actions. We want to share our knowledge and empower you as a Zero Waste expert in your community, working toward Zero Waste in an affordable way. As your personal advisor, a one-hour conference call with us may help you save weeks of effort and thousands of dollars.

If you need someone to do in-depth analysis of all your options, crunch the financials, and produce a hefty consultant’s report, we know lots of great professional consultants and we’re happy to offer some recommendations.